The story of
Cellblock Squadrons is a simple one. Not altogether original, it plants you in the role of a prisoner fighting for his freedom on the hostile frontiers of an empire. Your debt to society is measured in cold hard cash, and every mission you complete awards you a monetary sum that is used towards buying back your freedom.
The feeble story is granted a bit of exposition along the way via the emails you receive in between missions. These emails tell tales of what?s going back on Earth, letters from your superior officer, or just random emails from other prisoners. A few of these emails can be answered in various ways, but they have little to no effect on the storyline as a whole.
Also in between missions you can choose your ship. There are five base ships you can always pick between, and another five that can be unlocked during the course of the game. Each ship has different features, but none are varied enough that it makes the choice a fun one.
When you complete a mission and you rank first amongst your wingmen (simply by doing the most damage to the enemy), you are afforded the liberty to pick the next mission. Your choices are simply ranked Easy, Medium, and Hard, the harder of which grants more money upon completion.
The missions, which form the bulk of the game, are depressingly redundant. Every single one launches you out of your mother ship, throws a couple of enemy ships at you, and ends when either they or you are dead. Dying in a mission has no effect on the story other than the next mission will automatically be chosen for you.
There is no Multiplayer mode to speak of, and even if there was there seems little that could have been done with it to have made it fun. However, the single player mode is bad enough that it would have driven most people online, had there been the option.
